Straight in with the homework

Since our original group was disbanded as a result of the umbrella creative organisation having to close for business we have all been maintaining contact through our WhatsApp group.

Over the course of the last three weeks members of the group contributed ideas for prompts and here are my three offerings:

Message on a mirror

It’s been there for ages but because of its permanence it has become like the fixtures and fittings of the bathroom. Overlooked? Maybe. Taken for granted? Quite a bit.

   Today was no different but not for long.

   Today the message was clear. So clear as if it had only been left a few micro-seconds ago. The early morning chill that filled the house gave up running around and settled into my spine.

   I saw my Dad in the mirror but how could that be so as he has been dead for over ten years now. What was he trying to tell me? I asked him. I couldn’t hear him yet I could see him speaking beyond the moisture on the mirror. He had nearly gone when I cleared the moisture. He returned and I asked those questions again. I watched him try to answer me. I watched him fade away.

   There was no need to ask the questions again. I already knew the answers.

The Plot Thickens

I took this prompt and my first couple of efforts were based on the character Henry IV in Pirandello's play of the same name. My words kept getting convoluted and obtuse. Instead and out of some degree of desperation I wrote the following acrostic piece:

This prompt, based on a cliché as old as time itself and threadbare with use, was quite a challenge.

Hope was abandoned in the beginning but I managed to rise to the. challenge.

Endurance has been the key to thinking about it and then eventually writing it.

Persistence and patience played their parts as well.

Lonely hours with the keyboard, Wikipedia, pen, paper and some twelve year old amber liquid from Scotland helped to push this task to completion.

Ockham’s Razor came to mind very early one morning but it had nothing to do with shaving as I use Harry’s products for that.

There are, William of Ockham decreed, always at least two competing theories and sets of explanations for anything and we should always opt for the simplest to help our understanding.

That may not always be the correct one but it is always a good starting point.

However, whenever we try to explain something there is the risk that we may make it too complex or riddle it with weaknesses, limitations and qualifications.

If that does happen then maybe what we see, what we hear, what we touch, what we smell is really quite complex.

Confusing and challenging is what this may be but we stick with and learn.

Eventually we will know that what first appears to be simple and almost binary in outcomes as in politics, geopolitics, economics, the stories we write and life in all of its forms is never simple.

Nuances created by raw power, psychology, biology and society at large are always churning just beneath the surface and conspiring seemingly intentionally to make our lives difficult but don’t take it personally.

So much so that the plots of my life and yours has been thickened with dramas, subterfuges, deviations and distractions but they all lead to the same outcome; a dead end.

Who left the flowers

I did a piece about T E Lawrence's grave at Moreton in Dorset for a travel book I am writing. I shared the story with the group and included a comment that there is a village myth or legend that on the anniversary of Lawrence's death a solitary rose would appear. The mystery was that no in the village of Moreton ever saw who appeared to put the rose on the grave.

Tim and I walked the length of the office to the kitchen to make coffees for the rest of the team and ourselves.

   It was that time of the morning when proceedings reach a natural hiatus. We heard the banter going around about it being Valentine’s Day.

   “Are you going out tonight?”

   “Any surprises for the other half planned for later?”

   “I sent a card but you know what the post is like, probably won’t arrive for another two weeks. I’ve got a spare to hand deliver later just in case.”

   I asked Tim if he had any plans to surprise his wife Kate later in the day.

   “Bit difficult mate. Kate’s on nights in A&E.  Ships in the night we are at the moment. I leave for work before she gets home from her shift. Then tonight I’ll get home just as he sets off again. Anyway, neither of us are into all that fluffy stuff. What about you?”

   “Nothing planned apart from we’ve got one of those meals for two with a bottle of bubbly from M&S. Have that, watch the news and that’s our Valentine’s Day done.”

   When we returned to our syndicate desks with ours and everyone else’s drinks Mervyn let Tim know that his phone had been quite busy. Tim took the phone out of his jacket pocket.

   “Kate. I’ll give her a call.”

   It was a call everyone in the office heard as he had hit the speaker button without realising it.

   Kate answered.

   “What’s up?” Tim asked.

   “Nothing really. I just rang you to say thank you for the fabulous Boquete of flowers that were on the doorstep when I got home earlier. All my favourites. Roses. Carnations and some lovely sprays of foliage. Is everything alright as you don’t normally do this romantic sort of thing. I really do love you.”

   “Oh, glad you’re surprised. If I get away early maybe I’ll see you before you go off to work?” Tim said as he closed the call.

   He looked up and realised everyone in the office had heard the conversation. Embarrassment flushed his face then he looked at me.

   “I’m not sure what’s going on mate. I didn’t order any flowers for Kate.”  

I hope you enjoyed these efforts. If you did and want to read some more of my ork, which is constantly growing, then please visit my home page here on Vocal Media.

Thank you for your time

Alan